Re: Storage server
On Fri, Sep 07, 2012 at 01:42:32PM -0400, Dan Ritter wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 07, 2012 at 06:29:35PM +0200, Veljko wrote:
> >
> > Hi!
> >
> > I'm in the process of making new backup server, so I'm thinking of best
> > way of doing it. I have 4 3TB disks and I'm thinking of puting them in
> > software RAID10.
> >
> > I created 2 500MB partitions for /boot (RAID1) and the rest it RAID10.
>
> So far, so good.
>
> > LVM will provide me a way to expand storage with extra disks, but if
> > there is no more room for that kind of expansion, I was thinking of
> > GlusterFS for scaling-out.
>
> Let me suggest a different approach. It sounds like you're
> planning on a lot of future expansion.
Well, it is possible that this will be quite enough for a long time, but
I just want to be able to expand it if necessary.
>
> Get a high-end SAS RAID card. One with two external SFF8088
> connectors.
>
> When you start running out of places to put disks, buy external
> chassis that take SFF8088 and have daisy-chaining ports. 2U
> boxes often hold 12 3.5" disks.
>
> You can put cheap SATA disks in, instead of expensive SAS disks.
> The performance may not be as good, but I suspect you are
> looking at sheer capacity rather than IOPS.
I failed to provide enough information. It's desktop class machine in
desktop case. Hardware I have is what I must use, no space for
additional hardware. I can only use on board SATA connectors.
Since it's basic usage will be backup server, performance is not most
important thing, but it will contain some virtual machines (with modest
usage though) so RAID10 will provide quite sufficient IO performance.
> Now, the next thing: I know it's tempting to make a single
> filesystem over all these disks. Don't. The fsck times will be
> horrendous. Make filesystems which are the size you need, plus a
> little extra. It's rare to actually need a single gigantic fs.
Yes, I was thinking the same thing. Just a little extra then already
used.
> > OS I would use is Wheezy. Guess he will be stable soon enough and I
> > don't want to reinstall everything again in one year, when support for
> > old stable is dropped.
>
> This is Debian. Since 1997 or so, you have had the ability to
> upgrade from major version n to version n+1 without
> reinstalling. You won't need to reinstall unless you change
> architectures (i.e. from x86_32 to x86_64).
>
> -dsr-
But, isn't complete reintall safest way? Dist-upgrade can go wrong
sometime.
Regards,
Veljko
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